


Shards of Broken Glass

by missema



Category: Choice of the Deathless - Fandom, Craft Sequence - Max Gladstone
Genre: Backstory, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Hidden Schools, Implied Sexual Content, Interstitial, Necromancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-04-17 10:08:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14186562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missema/pseuds/missema
Summary: These are pieces set in before, inbetween and after Kiki Cavendish and Ashleigh Wakefield get together in Choice of the Deathless. References to the game and greater Craft Sequence world will be here and there, but it's mostly their story.





	1. Wakefield

The Hidden Schools, first year

It took him the better part of two months to figure out who she was. He knew who she was, of course, but didn't understand right away. Ashleigh Wakefield was the type of man that always kept up on social gossip, even when it seemed irrelevant. It often wasn't, which was a pity.

But he hadn't realized when he first met her that she was _that_ Cavendish.

Her name was Clotilde Chantal Cavendish, but no one ever called her that. Hence, his confusion when Clotilde was listed as the Cavendish that kept getting scores nearly as high as his in class. Sometimes they were better, but not usually. Clotilde Cavendish seemed to be an unknown with a last name that was bigger than her, and a good mind for necromantic magic. Had he known who she was, he would have been more impressed.

She was Clotilde Cavendish, but more than that, she was Kiki Cavendish. He'd never known her real name before that, because everyone, even in the society pages, called her Kiki. They were of an age and when she was a debutante, they announced her as Miss Kiki Cavendish. He'd been there, though not as a willing participant as she was. He remembered her. She'd been blonde then, and awkward with puberty and unshod childhood poundage that made her seem more clumsy than she was. She hadn't been a beauty, though she supposedly possessed a magnetic personality and abundant charm. He'd never gotten to know her as more than a name and a bored face, so he couldn't confirm or deny that assessment.

Kiki Cavendish had been the bane of his early teenage years. One of his cousins knew her quite well and kept him supplied with an appraisal of her every movement for a while, until they had a falling out. Kiki had been daring, funny, charming, amazing, so very amazing, until she wasn't anymore. But the damage had been done, because Grandmama had heard about the amazing and awful Kiki Cavendish, and was already angling for them to meet. She was the scion of a good old family, though the Cavendish clan wasn't nearly as grand as the southern Wakefields, but not many were. Whatever the Cavendish line had or lost, they were worthy in the eyes of his grandmama, and Kiki Cavendish with the only qualification that he and she were nearly the same age, were supposed to meet.

It never happened. Kiki ran off to Dresediel Lex and sat in one of the old temples there, or perhaps she met the King in Red or joined the rebels of his city. No one knew the truth, though there were plenty of fantastic and equally unlikely theories. Whatever she found there, it was enough of a change to make her family no longer interested in presenting her to society, though she was the eldest daughter of two. When she came back two years later, it was decided that the young lady, who was now properly a lady and no longer the tempestuous rebel she'd been when she ran off, was to focus on her education. Her family smartly neglected to mention that this education came from an affinity for the dark arts and she would finish her education in necromancy at the Hidden Schools.

Kiki Cavendish no longer dyed her naturally black hair into thick honey blonde spirals, and she was more lovely than he remembered from the brief glimpses he got of her as a bored sixteen year old debutante. Now she was all dark eyes and hair and soft lips warm brown skin that seemed to glow with golden undertones. At eighteen, she had a gravitas that most of their classmates lacked, probably from dealing with whatever Old Gods or Deathless Kings she'd encountered in her travels.

Which is why he hadn't realized who she was until nearly two months into their studies.

She was standing right next to him, doing the same thing he was, the scent of expensive eau de parfum catching his attention first. They were looking at test results that had been pinned up, and her name was listed as Kiki Cavendish instead of Clotilde, because now the whole college knew her as Kiki. Clotilde was written and crossed out with Kiki scrawled in a bigger, more determined hand. Kiki checked the results, grinned and looked over at him. She had a beautiful smile, her wide mouth and full lips already inviting, and the brightness of her smile made it easy for her to spread her good mood. Ashleigh resisted, keeping his face carefully neutral as she looked over at him.

"How'd you do?" she asked, giving him a sidelong look that twisted her smile into a smirk.

He nodded at the paper with his name and perfect score at the top. "The same as always. I'm Ashleigh Wakefield."

"Oh, I know you, but we haven't met before," she said, perking up and extending her hand. "I'm Kiki Cavendish."

He wanted to say that he knew, but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction. Instead he held onto her hand for the barest space of a moment, and then dropped it as if it had offended him. "Good to finally meet you, Cavendish," he said, making sure the words dripped disdain. She hid her frown skillfully, but cocked her head at him as if she were trying to understand his response.

It felt like a condemnation, and yet, he was frustrated by her obliviousness. This was the Kiki Cavendish, once the center of his cousin's world, and bearer of his grandmama's ambitions for him. They were supposed to be something together, at least in the mind of his family, at one point. He'd lost so much time hearing about her, disliking her before he even met her because of the expectations put on them. Kiki Cavendish had been more than a name, more than the girl she'd been. She'd been a thorn in his side for the last five years, whether she knew it or not. She couldn't just walk up to him and introduce herself.

But she had, and now she was walking away, their interaction forgotten as she joined a group of friends. He knew everyone there, though not as well as she appeared to know them. Grady leaned down and kissed her cheek, trying to slide a proprietary arm around her, but she neatly stepped out of his grasp with a laugh, skipping around her group until she was caught on the other side and swept up in a hug by a guy they all called Keck. He knew why hey all wanted to hug her, and it had nothing to do with the second-highest score in the class he heard them congratulating on.


	2. Kiki

Kiki, The Hidden Schools

Sometimes, she had dreams of the God Wars, though she hadn't been alive for them. In the raw face of dawn that morning, Kiki stood in the window of her room, wishing she could feel the warmth of the sun on her naked skin. The last dream had been a doozy. She wasn't sure whose memories she'd acquired, but at least they weren't growing in strength over time. The star that she'd found as a child, the one that gave her the affinity for the Craft, even its power wasn't enough to banish the dreams. They'd been part of her since she'd been a teenager.

She'd tried nearly everything, except just living with them. Here, at the Hidden Schools, there was school, and various distractions of the pleasurable variety. One such distraction lay in her bed, not too far away. He turned so demanding once they'd been alone, hands that pinched instead of caressed, suggestions that saw only to his desires alone. Kiki knew she'd never try him again after today. She watched the sunlight play across the tines on the Sevenfold Tower and tried not to think about the night before. She had a test to study for today, and her quick mind went to the comforting task of organizing her schoolwork. Her mind eased as she stood there nude, long hair colored to a red phosphorescent brilliance by a henna treatment and magic trailing down her back, with two inches of black roots growing in.

There were classes, always some official lesson to pay attention to, but Kiki had taught herself to read between the lines, to seek out all the hidden parts that made this place so special. The Hidden Schools were more than just the intent and dark magic that made them infamous, so much more. She was here to learn, yes, but not just to study the lessons in the curriculum. There were so many secrets hidden here, she could stay her whole life and not find but a tenth of them. Poking into every corner was the only way to stumble upon something that might help, and she had to be smart enough to recognize it when she did run across it. She'd sworn to herself that she'd find something to make sense of this, help for these memories and dreams that had almost driven her mad at the age of sixteen, but that felt like a promise she couldn't keep. 

As she looked out the window, she could see people walking down to the library. She recognized a few, though she didn't move to call out or make herself known. Though no one would think it out of character, she didn't need her friends and classmates to look up and see her naked in the window. There was Mario walking and talking to himself as always. Brilliant, that one, but he only had half a mind on his studies. Sarah-Ellis was coming out of the library at this ungodly hour, looking like a zombie for her trouble. And there, with his signature slight swagger of a walk, went the coolly disaffected and terribly beautiful, Ashleigh Wakefield. 

It was difficult to categorize Wakefield as a friend, though they were friendly at times. They were rivals for most of the time, though she liked having him around. He was a whetstone for her intellect, a reason to remain interested in classes that now bored her. She was only sorry that he held such a grudge against her. Kiki assumed he'd taken it up on behalf of his cousin Kathleen, who was an asshole when they were younger, but she'd never bothered to ask. She liked Wakefield, in an abstract sort of way, because his mind was sharp as his smile and he never used both to their fullest without reason. But he too like his cousin Kathleen, was an asshole, he was just more understandable to her.

"Hey Kiki, you want some breakfast?" Avery asked from behind her and she turned only slightly to look at him. He was handsome, powerfully built, more interested in sports than the art of the Craft. She was fairly certain when the star had come to him with power, he'd eaten it. He seemed the type.

"I don't eat breakfast," she lied, and turned back to the window.

"That's really bad for you," he said, and she could hear his frown.

"Are you so hungry for porridge you want to leave already? I was thinking of going back to bed," she said. It was another lie, but she had time, and right now she had the inclination to teach. He could do with some teaching.

"Back to bed? To sleep, or?" he let the question trail off, hope making his face light up. It had been better for him than her last night, otherwise he'd be making his excuses.

"Not to sleep, Ash-Avery," she said, catching herself before she almost called him Ashleigh. Why would she call him that?

But she didn't think on it as his grin answered her and she retreated from the morning into the dark of her bedroom.


	3. Nightmares

The problem with the Hidden Schools was that was entirely too like other schools and not enough like them at all. He was meeting with a particularly difficult professor, one that held his grade in the palm of her hand, and would only meet with him in a nightmare. It was a test of sorts, to see how well he could maintain the connection as they had a meeting.

It was child's play, really, but that didn't mean he didn't appreciate the intent of it. He did it easily, sealing his top grade in place. Ashleigh was disappointed that she didn't demand more of him, but there was the classwork, he supposed. Neither was much of a challenge for him, but they had to start somewhere. Truly, he'd expected more of his classes in his first year. It wasn't exactly a cakewalk all of the time, but he’d thought it would be more difficult.

He was a little bored. It was making him restless, but not reckless enough to attract the attention of a professor, he hoped. Personalized attention could be deadly, and he had no wish to become another fail out. Wakefield would be here for years, or months depending on how short the years were for the rest of the world. He had time to find a challenge worthy of him.

Wakefield's grandmama actually interrupted him at the end of his nightmare to make sure he was "upholding the family name properly," at the Hidden Schools. Really.

“What do you plan on doing with yourself when you’re done there, Ashleigh?” she asked, striding around the pool of blood in her neat beige pantsuit, looking as if she’d just stepped out of a lunch meeting.

“I thought I might practice the Craft, once I’ve learned it,” he drawled, base sarcasm brought out by his annoyance. He couldn’t smother the embarrassment of his grandmama interrupting him, so he took it out on her.

“That’s all well and good, but you need a plan,” she said, giving him the gimlet eye from across the pool.

He thought for a moment before he answered, gambling on what she might hope to hear from him. Though she was far away, she had the power to rip him home from this excursion and trap him in the family Concern. That was the last thing he wanted, to be holed up on some worthless plane, working with cousins that he wanted to avoid. Ashleigh always had at least three plans in his mind, and he plucked the one that he thought might be the best answer to suit both of them.

“Kelethras, Albrecht, and Ao are the best at the Craft. I want to practice there, when I graduate,” he said, and was surprised at the honesty in his voice.

His Grandmama nodded, pleased with his plans. “That will work, Ashleigh, as long as you keep up with your studies. It’s a good place to learn. You’ll need to specialize in Contracts. Speak with your advisors and see that you take the right classes.”

With that, the nightmare dissolved, leaving him awake and prone on his bed. It was still the middle of the night, he could tell from the absolute stillness, of how hard his breath sounded in the silence when he became aware of breathing. His eyes were open, staring into the darkness at his ceiling, adjusting to the tiny slivers of light leaking into the dark room from other places. He closed them, and groped for sleep. Finding that it wasn’t near, he sat up and decided on wakefulness.

If his ambition was to get hired by KAA, he had better turn his mind to his books and studies. This first meeting with a professor may have been an easy hurdle to walk over, but they would not all be like that. Dressing in the same suit he’d worn for the day, Wakefield grabbed his books and shoved them into his case before heading to the library. It was the best place to study, especially at this time of night.

#

There was a press of hands at her neck, the feeling of constriction all around her. Kiki couldn’t breathe, and her vision was getting dark around the edges. That lightheaded feeling just at the brink of unconsciousness overtook her, but she fought it.

“Stop,” she whisper begged, the barely audible sound ragged leaving her throat.

She tried to summon power to her hands, something to break this terrible hold but she felt nothing. Her head was caught in a vice grip, and without the swivel of her neck she had to use her failing eyes to look around. She only saw the masked face of her attacker, but there was a strangeness to them. Their clothes were dated, old-fashioned, even for the ragged scraps that they were. Her body felt odd as well, too heavy, like there was too much of it laying against the razor sharp sand. The glyphs the Hidden Schools had branded on her upon entrance no longer burned on her flesh.

She wasn’t herself.

When she whispered “Stop” again, it was in a voice she recognized as not her own, and too redolent with spent power to be anything still human. If it ever was human at all.

“This isn’t how you kill me,” she said, on the brink of passing out.

“It’s a start,” the voice above her murmured, and she was disappointed. Not only could she not place the voice, it sounded so petulant, almost childish as their hands further cut off her air. She would pass out soon, but she doubted this person, whomever they were, could truly bring about her end. No, she would slip into quiet, darkness, and wait. The ghost of an airless laugh unable to issue forth was the last thing she was conscious of before darkness surrounded her.

Kiki woke up from her dream memory, gasping, desperate for air.

Her grades were slipping this semester. Truth be told, it was the nightmares. They were slips of memories that didn't belong to Kiki, the feeling of a God fighting with everything they had against her, but not her. It was too much to try to explain, let alone understand. She searched more now, finding refuge in old texts and whispered atrocities. It felt good to be alone, and here at the Hidden Schools, she was alone like she'd been in Dresediel Lex.

She'd gone there for the priests that still were rumored to live in the old sections of town. For something. For quiet and to try to make sense of everything in her head. She’d only been marginally successful.

There hadn't been much there; DL was a city perpetually on the verge of drying out. The King in Red wanted more, but there was nothing but desert around it, and it was so hard to squeeze that continually. Plus the deserts and the dunes and crags of it were filled with the Scorpionkind, and they’d never liked humans. But she'd learned so much of herself there that she had a soft spot for Dresediel Lex.

It was the middle of the night, and she went to her window. There would be no going back to sleep now, not if she didn’t want to return to the scene that made whatever memory she had of strangulation in the streets. Instead she looked out at the scene, the Hidden Schools and all of their glory, the lightning playing across the buildings. It was beautiful and haunted here, just the place for necromancers to learn. She loved the idea of being a Deathless King, a skeleton warrior working to balance out the power ripped from the Gods.

Sometimes the Gods didn’t deserve their power.

Kiki turned away from the window and back to her room, fully awake now. Though she hadn’t been here long, it had been enough time to start mucking it up. Her thoughts turned to the library, always open and staffed by the unsleeping dread librarians, she should go there and work on the classwork she hadn’t been able to manage recently. Perhaps she might find some answers for herself there, but Kiki realized how unlikely that was. If she couldn’t find answers, secrets would do; she loved learning secrets.

Power always begat secrets. What better place to hide them than in plain sight? It was better than suffering through another nightmare in the lost cause of sleeping.


	4. Chapter 4

There wasn’t daytime at the Hidden Schools, not as it was understood by the mortals that lived in the day and night. A practitioner of the Craft drew their power from the starlight, cold and strong and pure, so it was their way to always be close to that power. Bathed in starlight, skin could absorb the power and not force reliance on soulstuff. But Craftspeople had to sleep, so there was the semblance of day and night for students, first years especially, but it was scheduled only the way the mandatory classes were broken up.  
  
Her skin was warm, too human as she went to another lecture, her lungs heating as she exerted herself unduly in a vain effort to be on time. Maybe she should take up a sport, they had them here, just to exhaust her body more efficiently. Kiki looked forward to the time when she would no longer require sleep. She used to hope that her dreams would calm, that she could once more repair herself with rest but that hope had been so abused that it simply ceased to be, the thought of it laughable.

Since Kiki didn’t precisely sleep a lot, she did manage to keep up with the letters from her parents. Her mother and stepfather, a man named Michel, wrote her regularly. Her father and his fourth wife, whose name Kiki didn’t bother to remember, wrote her sporadically and expected immediate answers, as if she had nothing better to do with her life than wait for their missives. She always wrote her mother and Michel back, and her grandparents even if they hadn’t written to her first. The problem was that she didn’t know quite what to say about the Hidden Schools.

It was such a strange place to exist, and yet she’d wanted nothing more than to be here. She’d begged for the schools to open their gates to her for months, and she knew she’d been accepted with more alacrity than most. It was just now that she was here, she didn’t know what to say.

“Dear Mama, I have nothing but work to do here, and I’m a dab hand at creating zombies, but the memories remain stuck in my head and my new lab partner is Ashleigh Wakefield.”

Actually, that last part wasn’t a bad idea. Her parents knew the Wakefields, of course, but she’d been out of the loop of gossip while she was away from home. Home was split between a few New World cities where she’d grown up, but none of them as large, historical or exciting as Dressdiel Lex, the first city that truly belonged to the Craft. None of the places she’d lived as a child had terrorists and ghosts and Deathless Kings on the same scale as Dressdiel Lex, and Kiki smiled just thinking about the place. She hadn’t found what she’d gone there for, but she had found something of herself, which counted.

Her wording had to be careful, so she made a stink about her new lab partner and his family. She whined and complained a little. Enough that her mother wouldn’t start asking her embarrassing things about Ashleigh. There was enough that Kiki liked about him that she didn’t want things to become strained, and their families would certainly do so, leaping to conclusions and asking pointed questions before she could figure out anything about Ashleigh as a person. So she carefully asked about Ashleigh Wakefield, send her mail off and turned back to the bleak choice between her bed and studying. She picked her studies and didn’t think about Wakefield too much more than normal, until she got an answer from her mama.

It wasn’t so much of an answer as it was a newspaper clipping, showing a slightly younger Ashleigh holding up a prize for fencing. He apparently was an accomplished pugilist as well, though he didn’t take to the sport and preferred the civility of fencing. The young man, pictured in a daguerreotype of him in his fencing whites, spoke three languages and excelled in debate. There was nothing more about Ashleigh and only a few handwritten lines about his family, good stature, some bad eggs (a cousin of his with a drug problem if her mama recalled correctly) and a little information about his Grandmother, who headed the family. Kiki blew out a breath. If that was the best her mama could dig up then maybe there was nothing for her to actually know about Ashleigh, at least, not yet.

#

He was sitting at his laboratory table, looking over his notes when Wakefield’s partner joined him. It was the first time he’d worked with Cavendish, and though she wasn’t a bad partner by any means, he stiffened beneath his shirt as she sat down with him. He must master that reaction, there was no reason to let someone know he was uncomfortable by broadcasting it with body language.

“Wakefield.” She smiled his name, saying it as if he were more than just a randomly assigned partner for a class. For some reason, she was relentlessly cheerful, as if she wanted to throw him off with it but it was too genuine. He felt the same way, though he hide it better.

“Cavendish,” he replied, his voice cooler and more reserved but not devoid of emotion. It was there, banked beneath his annoyance, the fact the he rather liked Kiki Cavendish. He had bristled before because of it, unwilling to let her see. It was easier for him to never admit it because it was her, she was an awesome and infuriating as his cousin had said all of those years ago.

There was more than base attraction forming betwixt the two of them, though he had spared her an appreciative glance or two when she couldn’t see him, especially now that he regularly had the chance to examine her up close. She wasn’t beautiful in the way the should be immortalized in art, or that resembled the sculpture of a goddess, but in a sensual, far too touchable way that haunted his dreams. He could never tell her. Wakefield felt like if he said anything to her, she would simply treat him the way she treated other men. He had no wish to be discarded by her, hurt feelings and bruised pride turning vitriolic as he continued to desire her despite himself.

Their work was more interpretation of observations instead of experiment itself during this lab, but they fought over the results at every turn. She demanded they extrapolate and understand, and he required precision, because what were they to study if it was merely ‘close enough’? Their results were similar enough that this was a purely academic endeavor, and they simply liked to argue with each other.

He was _enjoying_ this, enjoying her company. Ashleigh was about to launch into another set of results, mocking Cavendish and her haphazard summaries, when she flinched as if she’d been struck. It was akin to a shout from her, Cavendish normally retained remarkable control over her features and reactions, and it was noteworthy enough that it dried the wisps of his arguments on his tongue.

“Wakefield, don’t look away from me for too long, and whatever you do, don’t look at him directly,” she murmured, her eyes darting nervously towards the front of the classroom.

Their professor was absent, as was usual, and the teaching assistant was running the lab. That was normal. What was unusual was that Professor Denovo was talking to the assistant, his genial smile plastered on his face even as his eyes scanned the rows of students working at their stations. Wakefield didn’t understand why Denovo of all people had spooked Cavendish. She kept talking about their results, but now their pleasant volley of barbs and rejoinders was stilted, she was no longer playing for him.

Professor Denovo started walking through the aisles, talking to people at a table here and there. His laughter was overloud in the lab, too hearty and forced, unnaturally resonant in this chamber of glass and wood and formaldehyde. Wakefield watched Kiki stiffen further, and her mind wasn’t on their results. He thought about leading her out, but that would shower them with more attention of the kind she didn’t seem to want. Her continued discomfort perplexed him. Denovo ran a lab, one that it was an honor to be part of, and their research into the Craft and its workings were renowned. The man himself wasn’t wholly objectionable, though Ashleigh saw through his country bumpkin act and disliked him for how plainly false the persona was. Even if it hadn’t been in the past, it didn’t fit now and Denovo’s acting skills left much to be desired.

“Wakefield, Cavendish, good to see you both working together,” Denovo said as he came up to their table. His smile was a serpent’s frown, the howl of power focused so tight it turned inward on itself and screamed across the starry skies. It almost passed for the geniality it strove for.

“Professor,” Cavendish said, but there was none of her warmth in the words. Underneath the table, she gripped his thigh, hard. Had it been some other time and with a lighter touch, he’d have enjoyed it for a moment, then set her hand back in her own lap. This time he let her touch him, remaining impassive while she steadied her hand and willed nerves not to betray her.

“We’re actually quite busy here, if you don’t mind,” Ashleigh said, only sparing Denovo a sidelong glance before returning his attention to Kiki’s lovely dark brown eyes, “and I’ve another class soon.”

“Of course, of course. Don’t mind me, I’ll see you soon enough. Looking forward to talking with you both more,” Denovo said evenly as he departed. He left the laboratory soon after, and it was only then did Kiki relaxed, her shoulders no longer making contact with her lower ears.

“Don’t ever join his lab,” she hissed in an undertone, “no matter what he says or what recommendations he promises to write at the end.”

“Is that what happened to you?” he asked, and though he meant the question to be a gesture of care, his tone made is mocking, sarcastic. She took her hand from his thigh and the removal of warmth left it too cool on his trousers. There was something that broke in her expression, and she turned away from him for a moment before she answered. Denovo truly frightened her, and Wakefield wanted to know why. There were many awful and awesome things here at the Hidden Schools, but he’d never seen someone so upset by Denovo.

“Wakefield, I could have used this chance to encourage you to work with him, get a rival out of the way, but I like having a competent lab partner for once. Don’t fuck it up by being you,” she said, and then slid off her stool. Her hair, the same color of dark henna red it had been for the last few months, seemed too close to the shade of old blood as it swung over a shoulder and down her retreating back.

She was out of the room before he could form an apology, but he got the feeling he didn’t need to give her one. She was simply running from her fear, the weakness that Denovo had exposed with his unexpected presence. Wakefield knew liars when he met them, and any student of the Craft was trained to see past the truths that mouths speak. Kiki had been, not terrified, but a cross between fearful and angry. The least he could do was to heed her advice.

It was a good thing he did, he realized later. It was a month later before he even got an inkling of what Denovo was about, and then only because a friend of his started working in Denovo’s lab. Then he understood why Cavendish had warned him away. He hated owing her one for the warning, but he was in her debt nonetheless. He would have to find a way to pay her back without her realizing why he was doing it.

Denovo was a monster, but he wouldn’t ensnare Ashleigh.


End file.
